YMMV / Solar Opposites

• Accidental Aesop: Korvo and Terry unwittingly causing catastrophic devastation in an attempt to make amends with their neighbours gives the unintentional lesson "Don't go to hell and back for approval from people who already hate you. Trying to fix a failed relationship can cause more problems than it's worth."
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Tim believe his own rhetoric about building a utopia inside The Wall instead of risking everything trying to get back to the Before? Or has he became a He Who Fights Monsters replacement for The Duke, drunk on the power and admiration that exists for him only in the Wall? Or has he gone Sunk Cost Fallacy, no longer able to accept the possibility of escape, and thusly, that the deaths caused by his actions, and the suffering of those imprisoned in The Wall, are meaningless? Episode 7 offers a pretty strong case for all three options, though the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
  • Episode 8 offers a bit of backstory into Terry's life on Shlorp, where he was singled out by a leader for not conforming and had a close connection to Terri, who didn't join in with the rest of his peers' robotic mantra of "Conformity is cool!". Is Terry simply a lovable idiot who enjoys Earth culture and trying new things? Or is he really a Stepford Smiler who loves that on Earth, nobody is around to force him to conform?
• Arc Fatigue: This is one reason the Wall has gone from one of the most revered parts of the show to a subject of Broken Base. Knowing the inhabitants will likely never return to a happy, normal life makes the various power struggle and revolution plots come across as repetitive and depressing to some audiences, who would rather watch the more out-there alien plot lines.
• Broken Base:
  • Which subplot is the best part of the show? Is it the wacky, low-continuity antics of the title characters? Or is it the tightly-plotted drama of the Wall? Those who watch primarily for one plot will often skip any episodes that primarily focus on the other, with fans of the alien plot getting sick of the Wall's drama and preferring the funny sitcom antics, and fans of the Wall getting annoyed with the zany Blue-and-Orange Morality nature of the aliens and preferring the more complex drama of the Wall. The Silvercops storyline introduced in Season 3 and elaborated upon further in Season 4 only complicated this further, as it's either a new interesting pastiche with fun characters or yet another subplot focusing on an unlikable character and detracting from the other two.
  • Korvo being voiced by Dan Stevens instead of Justin Roiland from season 4 onward was immediately controversial even putting aside the reason for the change, particularly because he now has an English accent. Some find it a creative choice that makes Korvo stand out against Roiland's previous roles, while others find it too jarring.
• Complete Monster: Out of all the people Yumyulack shrank down and sent to The Wall, the following are the vilest:
  • Season 2: Ethan was a disturbed man who tried to suffice his murderous impulses by causing the Flooding of the Nerds, killing countless people. After surviving, Ethan becomes a Serial Killer with a god complex, having already gruesomely murdered 5 people before getting detained by Halk. Ethan would proudly confess to committing these murders with plans to continue his killing spree by blackmailing The Wall's leader, Tim, into letting him go.
  • Seasons 3-4: Sister Sisto murdered the previous leader of the Bowinian Church to bring herself to power. Revealing Cherie's child to the residents of the Wall, Sisto has the child branded to make her a false symbol to the Church. Sisto is revealed to have turned the Church into a cult, having anyone who enters said Wall executed if they do not accept Jesse as their god, with their heads being displayed on a wall as a warning. When one of the residents discover the temperature decreasing at an alarming rate, Sisto reveals that she had been personally lowering it before having said resident executed. After Cherie and Montez manage to escape, Sisto sends her soldiers after them, many getting killed by the traps left for them. After Sisto discovers that they had already escaped, she abandons her soldiers and leaves them to freeze to death, revealing to Nova that she never believed in Jesse to begin with and was lying to her the whole time about reviving her husband, breaking Nova in the process before attempting to stab her to death.
  • "The Cubic Lattice Crystallizer": Platinum Stevie is a survivor of The Wall's flood who would become leader of the Cannibalistic Muck People, having them kill and eat anyone they see. Encountering a party led by Cherrie and Halk, Stevie seemingly complies with their efforts to establish diplomatic terms, only to kill and butcher their ally, Joe Sanders, and feed them his remains, before attempting to kill the party and declare her intent to reach the Upper Wall to kill and devour as many people as possible.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Kidnapping a child, making them run around a maze repeatedly and threatening to douse her in acid should not be hilarious. Yet Linda was so nasty to the kids when they weren't doing anything that her suffering seems more like Catharsis Factor. It's also hilarious when the aliens ask why humans have a drink that dumbs down their brains.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Molly the mouse appears in only one episode, and is the pet of a minor character, but her cute, friendly demeanor endeared her to many viewers. They were upset when she kicked the bucket.
• Fanfic Fuel: Terri. Unlike Vanbo, she was probably a real Shlorpian since Terry apparently remembers her. She's incorporated in some AU fanfic or Tervo-centric stories.
• Genius Bonus: In "99 Ships", the various crews sent to colonize new worlds are called "Ballochory" teams. "Ballochory refers to a form of ballistic seed dispersal, in keeping with the Shlorpians' plant-based biology.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Episodes referencing Terry's disastrous relationship with Ansel Elgort become this after Thomas Middleditch (who voiced Terry) was accused of sexual assault in 2020.
  • Tim betraying Cherie, impaling her and dropping her outside was already bad and a Gut Punch. Season 2 reveals that Cherie was pregnant from their previous sexual encounter, and considering the placement of the wound, Tim could have easily caused her to miscarry.
• He's Just Hiding: Some fans aren't convinced that Halk died from his fall in the Boo Hoo hole. The show has pulled Disney Deaths before with Cherie (twice in fact), and even then her injuries during Terry and Korvo Steal A Bear were worse than Halk's. Not to mention the fall she took after Tim's betrayal was greater. Some fans expected for him to turn up in the next season, though this didn't come to fruition, though the theory was never technically debunked either.
• Ho Yay: Glenn and Xy in "Down and Out On Planet X-Non" come across as quite intimate, with Xy saving Glenn's life and quickly attaching to him, even forgiving him for being a former Silvercop despite the Holos' strong anti-Silvercop stance. Xy holds Glenn's hand with a tender expression when the latter gets a hologram implant, and appears quite disappointed at the end of the episode when Glenn leaves the Holo-House.
• Iron Woobie: Cherie is an incredible Determinator, constantly fighting and sacrificing for the Wall and refusing to take a break lest things go wrong. This attitude is because she's also suffered constant betrayal and loss, which comes to a head in season four when her own daughter gets kidnapped and used as a religious prop.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Many viewers find The Wall subplot more interesting than the shenanigans the aliens find themselves in, and wish that the series focused on the former. As such, Episode 7 of Season 1 & 2 (which focuses on The Wall and gives little attention to the aliens) are considered the best episodes of the entire series.
  • And for many others, Korvo and Terry's adorably romantic chemistry is enough of a sole reason to tune in, just check out most of the fan art for the show!
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • This show garnered such a fanbase mainly because of the amount of subtext between Korvo and Terry with a lot of shippy fanart of the two existing on social media. It became even more obvious with the Word of God confirmation that Korvo and Terry became an Official Couple after season 2.
  • While not as big as Korvo and Terry, there's quite a bit of fans whom enjoyed Duke's implied Asexuality.
• Moe: All five of the main characters count as Badass Adorkable Blithe Spirits, as their naivety regarding earth culture and heartfelt family-bonding moments make these characters pretty endearing to watch; Pupa in particular counts as a Ridiculously Cute Critter.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If having Pedro killed for inciting a food riot as the kid was begging for insulin didn't do it, the Duke certainly crossed it by flooding the lower wall, sentencing many civilians there to their deaths. He himself considers that he crossed the line in season 2, after bonding with Cherie.
  • Tim of all people ends up crossing this in "Terry and Korvo Steal A Bear". After he and Cherie find a way out of the Wall, a means to escape, he stabs Cherie, covers up the hole, and lies that the Duke and Cherie engaged in a Mutual Kill. As Cherie puts it, "I believed in you." Even worse, it's revealed that Cherie became pregnant with his child.
  • Miss Frankie crosses it in "The Apple Pencil Pro" when in her revenge plan against Yumyulack, she makes a pig named Peter sapient and then tortures him while she and her accomplices wear masks of the alien family just so they could trick Peter into falsely accusing the aliens of torturing him and therefore framing them of the crimes.
  • The Jesse cult not only steals Pezlie from her, they actually brand her with iron. Her pained wails are portrayed in the utmost serious light, marking these nuns, particularly Sisto, as easily the most depraved characters in the series.
• Narm Charm: The Wall is a shrunken society built with small toys and candy, which initially sounds silly (and often is), but provides the most tense drama in the series. Things like decapitating someone with a floss stick, giving birth in a PEZ dispenser, and relying on a Game Boy to generate heat are all used as effective worldbuilding for an epic plot about survival.
• Parody Displacement: Would you believe there are people who actually thought Fun Bucket was an original idea? You’d be forgiven for this as he's based on FuzzBucket; a somewhat obscure Disney TV movie from 1986.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Tervo, for Terry and Korvo.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Principle Cooke and Ms. Frankie telling off the Solar Opposites during the season 3 finale for the toxic environment they've been raising the Pupa in, is treated like a well needed reality check for our Villain Protagonists. However, given what an awful environment the two of them actively enable at school for Jesse and Yumyulack, they really are the last two people who should be telling anyone how to raise anything.
• Woobie Species: While they're not exactly a species, the inhabitants of the Wall definitely qualify. Most of them were just regular people that were shrunken down by Yumyulack for incredibly minor and petty reasons ranging from blaming a fart on Yumyulack to wearing a red shirt as if they were some kind of collectible. They are taken away from their families and lives, now forced to fend for themselves and survive inside a terrarium (if they aren't killed when they first entered) and only given candy to eat (which is very bad for people of their size unsurprisingly). In season 1 "the Wall" was ruled by a despotic tyrant named Duke that hoarded most of the resources and was full of roving murderous gangs. While their situation does improve by season 2, they are soon terrorized by a serial killer.
• The Woobie: Nova, particularly in the fourth season. Originally planning for domestic bliss with her husband Halk, she suffers a crisis of faith when Halk dies and turns to the Bowinian religion in hopes that Jesse may revive her husband someday and fix her problems. Instead, she becomes the Beleaguered Assistant to a vicious, murderous false prophet, who eventually snaps and puts Nova down for her naivety.
• Woolseyism: In the German dub, Korvo's voice actor is unchanged in the fourth season, unlike in the English version. The cold open for the series premiere instead has the charge of his voice be altered by the voice ray (only lasting a few seconds). Korvo's opening rant instead has him claim that a boned neckline is better than breast meat and how it makes him horny.

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